Latest news on Fantastikal Diabolikal Supermen

OK, I’m pleased to announce that all the design, layout and proofing work for our first WildEye book, Fantastikal, Diabolikal, Supermen, has been finished! This means that all we now have to do is send the final documents off to the printer, sit back and wait for it all to be delivered… So, hopefully it should be available in about a month, just in time for the Christmas rush (achem).

A few details: it’s 98 pages long, 8 of them on glorious full colour, printed on 130gsm coated paper and with a glossy colour cover. The retail price will be £12.99 and it will (eventualy) be available through Ebay, Amazon etc etc. I’ll also be selling it here – expect a shop to appear very shortly – for a knockdown price of c£9.99 + postage.

Here’s the back cover blurb for your delectation:

During the early 1960s, Italy was gripped by a new craze: adult comic books, known as fumetti neri, which pushed out the boat in terms of sex and violence. Characters such as Diabolik, Kriminal and Sadik became household names, not least because of repeated concerns voiced about their dubious morality in the conservative press. And film producers, never slow to spot a trend, quickly leapt on the bandwagon.

Fantastikal, Diabolikal Supermen is the first ever English language book to cover the curious genre that resulted. As well as including detailed reviews of over 30 films, from better known titles like Diabolik to obscurities such as The Devil’s Man and Three Supermen of the West, it also examines them in the light of the wider Italian film industry at the time, detailing how the cine-fumetti related to other trends such as Eurospy films and Spaghetti Westerns.

Featuring relevant excerpts from interviews with the actors and directors concerned and lavishly illustrated with numerous lobby cards, photos and posters, this is an invaluable reference guide to an otherwise ignored and forgotten cinematic phenomenon.

And I can now also give you a sneak preview of how it’s going to look, check out the images below…

The WildEye is a blog dedicated to the wild world of Italian cinema (and, ok, sometimes I digress into discussing films from other countries as well). Peplums, comedies, dramas, spaghetti westerns... they're all covered here.